


Hotshot

by Dahlia721



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, F/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 02:27:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29361027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dahlia721/pseuds/Dahlia721
Summary: You, a gifted individual who can control the elements has found yourself in a sticky situation with the Avengers. This isn't the first time someone has wanted to "help you" control your powers but something feels different with the way the Avengers are talking to you, almost like they really mean what they're saying. You decide to take a chance and let them help you because to be honest you need it, you have no idea what you're doing and maybe they can help. As you move into the Avengers tower you can't help but take note of a certain super soldier who seems to not even glance in your direction. Why was the soldier being so harsh? And what could you do to change it?
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Reader, James "Bucky" Barnes/Reader
Comments: 2
Kudos: 41





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first ever fan fic and I really wanted to try writing some so please let me know what you think! suggestions and thoughts would be appreciated!

One afternoon you were walking through the mall all by yourself shopping to get yourself some new clothes after your last training incident singed through one of your favorite sweaters. After picking out a beautiful green sweater you paid for it and started to head for the doors and get to your car to go home, until you heard a gunshot. You immediately dropped the bag that was housing your brand new sweater and broke out into a sprint toward the sound of gunfire ringing through the building.

Once you reached the origin of the sound you stopped sprinting as five armed men in black came into your field of view. You conjured a fireball in one hand as you slowly made your way towards the armed men, hoping to sneak up unnoticed and take them out with ease. Just as you were about to fire your enemies you heard a rustling sound behind you and you quickly snapped your head around ready to pounce and you almost did just that until you saw what the issue was. There were fifty of the men in black surrounding you, circling you, and encasing you so that you had no possible way of escaping their grasp.

“We got you now there’s no use in fighting us so why don’t you put away your little friend of fire you got in your hand there.” A particularly strong man spat at you.

You slowly dimmed the fireball out of existence and stood there for a moment contemplating if this was really going to be your life. Getting kidnapped by a bunch of strange men and probably getting turned into a weapon. You were deep in thought, unable to pull yourself out of the horrors you were dreaming about, until you heard a thunk to your right and quickly diverted your attention to the noise. Your jaw almost fell open at the sight that was in front of you, you couldn’t believe what, or rather who, was there. 

Iron man. The Iron man. The one and only Tony Stark stood in the same room as you with his infamous Iron man suit on and you couldn’t believe it.

“Hey kid you mind helping us with these?” Iron man threw the question at you as the rest of the Avengers crashed through the ceiling window into the middle of the circle where you were stood.

You took a minute to revel in the fact that you were stood next to the Avengers until you snapped back to where you were and what was happening, realizing that everyone’s life was at risk here.

“Uh, s-sure I guess…” You spoke as a ball of fire spang to life in your hands ready to be put to use.

“Good because we could use it.” Iron man chuckled as he hit a man in the face with a plasma beam.

As you watched the Avengers fight back the men trying to take you, one of them charged at you. Without hesitating you immediately sensed the danger and lobbed the fireball at his face, hitting him square in the jaw and sending him flying back into three of his fellow men and setting them all on fire, leaving them to burn to death. You slightly felt bad about the four men dying in such a painful way until you remembered that they were all out here to capture you, then you didn’t feel so bad about it. Just as you pulled yourself out of your guilt you felt a hand touch your back and pull you in order to get you to face them. You were met with a menacingly tall and buff man who pointed a gun between your eyes and you froze.

“Move and I put a bullet between the little girl’s eyes!” The man shouted so that everyone could hear him.

Everyone froze and the fighting ceased as they all turned to look at you cowering in fear as the barrel of a gun was shoved deeper towards your face. You blinked and swallowed dryly until the man grabbed your arm, which was his first mistake. He turned you so your back was pressed against his front and he shoved the barrel of his gun directly against your temple so that it was touching your skin, and that was his second mistake. Just as the man started to open his mouth to speak, you heated up your entire body to sear his flesh and melt his gun, but what happened that you didn’t intend on was him also catching on fire and burning to death while he still held his vice grip on your arm. 

Just as his arm started slipping you heard him croak out his final last words from behind you “Hail Hydra.” Until he finally fell and you left him a burning mess on the ground.

As you looked back up you saw the Avengers blankly staring at you and you started to get nervous because you thought you messed up or did something wrong and just as you were about to speak up and apologize you heard a laugh come from Iron man.

“Good work Hotshot.” He said as him and the rest of the team walked over with him. He patted you on the back and introduced you to everyone.

He went around the room introducing you to the team, Natasha Romanov (The Black Widow), Sam Wilson (The Falcon), Steve Rogers (Captain america), and Bucky Barnes (The winter soldier). He said that there was more to the team but they were all either back at the tower or busy and you’d meet them later. 

You absently nodded until you realized what he said. “Meet them later?” You asked Tony 

“Yeah kid you’re coming with us. For christ’s sake you’re still on fire. You clearly need help with your powers and I think you could be an asset. Whaddya say?”

You looked down and sure enough your leg was still engulfed in flame and you didn’t know how to put it out other than to conjure up some water to smother the fire to death. When you looked back up at the Avengers you opened your mouth to speak until Tony interrupted you.

“Hold on you can control more than fire?” he asked with genuine curiosity.

“Yeah all the elements, I assumed you knew.”

“Well then you definitely need to be on our side, you have the potential to be powerful and it’ll be better to have you as a teammate instead of an enemy.”

You thought about it for a moment weighing out the pros and cons. You didn’t have much to return to, a deadbeat out of the picture dad and a mom who only ever slept or did drugs. This, going to live in the Avengers tower and being a hero, was the best you were going to get out of life and was clearly the option to go with.

“Okay I’ll do it. I have nowhere better to go anyways.”

“Perfect. Follow us.” Tony told you as they all turned to leave the mall.

You took a deep breath preparing yourself for what was about to happen, and followed them all out to the quinjet which was to take you back to the Avengers tower. As you boarded the quinjet and the doors closed behind you, you took a seat as far away from everyone else as possible so that you wouldn’t bother them. You made it the whole flight without having to talk to anyone, only stealing small glances around the jet to get a better look at everyone’s features.

\------------------------

As you felt the jet land Captain America made his way over to you to come talk.

“Hey how was the flight?” He asked with a smile on his face, offering you his hand for help standing up.

“Uh it w-was alright I guess. Not the worst flight I’ve had.” You told him as you grabbed his hand and got up to follow him and the others out of the jet.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y get everyone to gather in meeting room three please we need to have a little team talk.” Tony called out as he entered the building.

“Who’s Fri-” You turned to ask the Captain until you were cut off by a female voice coming from somewhere inside the building.

“Yes sir right away Mr. Stark.” She answered.

You jumped a little bit but continued walking and just followed Steve as he led you towards the meeting room. “Friday is Tony’s A.I. you can ask her for anything and she’ll help you or guide you anywhere.”

“Okay that’s not creepy at all…” you muttered under your breath as Steve held open the door for you and you walked in to see everyone sitting and waiting for your arrival.

Everyone from beforel was in this room except for a few people you didn’t recognize from the mall but you definitely knew who they were. Thor, Hawkeye, The scarlet witch, and Vision all stared at you as you made your way in to take a seat next to Tony.

“Alright took you long enough Hotshot.” He muttered as you sat down. “Anyways. We have a new addition to the team. Hotshot, can control the elements and we’re taking her in because she needs our help and is going to be an asset. Once she can control her powers fully she’s going to be unstoppable and that’s a kind of force we want working with us instead of against us. Any questions? No? Good, because with that all I have to say is Barnes, she’s living in the room across from you so show her to her room. Avengers disassemble. And go get some sleep.”

You glanced at Bucky as you stood up waiting for him to say something to you or at least acknowledge you. You walked over and he gave you a slight nod until he slipped out the door towards the elevator.

You had to take up a light jog to catch up to Bucky with how fast he was walking and you just barely made it to the elevator and slipped in before the doors closed. As Bucky pushed a button for the elevator to go up, you noticed the light shine off of his metallic arm and stared in awe for a few moments before moving your gaze up to his face. He had a worried gaze cast over his face at all times, as if something was going to go wrong at any moment. He caught you looking and glanced in your direction before you quickly looked away, not wanting to draw any extra attention to yourself. Luckily just as Bucky was about to open his mouth and talk to you the elevator doors slid open and instead he stepped out, you following closely behind him.

He stopped in the hallway where there were two doors right across from each other and he pointed to the one on the left. 

“That one is yours and I’m right across from you.” He spoke to you, his voice deep and raspy.  
He continued speaking to you “And if you need anything ask Friday to find Tony or Steve for you.”

“Okay thank you.” You muttered to him as he disappeared behind his door.

You stood in the hallway alone for a moment just taking in and processing what was happening. You live in the Avengers tower across the hall from the Winter Soldier, you had an A.I. that could help you with anything, and you were a superhero now. This was going to be a wild ride and was definitely going to be hard to get used to. You sighed and stepped into your room to go to sleep for the night, not knowing what would be in store for you tomorrow but you figured no matter what that it would be helpful to be well rested. So you did just that, you got into bed and let sleep wash over you and you got the best night sleep you’ve had in awhile.


	2. Sleepless Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After training with some of your team mates you can't seem to get to sleep. You make your way down to the kitchen to try and make something to help you sleep, until you hear a noise that almost makes your heart stop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2 baby!! I'm hoping to start making the chapters a little bit longer and crank them out as fast as possible. I also want to mention that there's going to be little to no use of y/n because I'm just not a fan of it so instead I'll be sticking to nicknames. Enjoy!

You jolted awake to the sound of a door slamming shut and bolted into an upright sitting position taking in your surroundings. You were disoriented for a moment until the memories of yesterday came to the front of your mind. Glancing around at the unfamiliarity of the room, you were reminded that you were in the Avengers tower right now, and you are an Avenger. Your jaw almost fell open in shock as you realized that you were a superhero now and had superhero responsibilities.

Trying to shake your thoughts, you got up and out of bed to go and get ready for the day. As you were walking over to your closet you realized, you don’t have any clothes. You opened the closet doors to find nothing just as you thought you would so instead you opted for a brief hot shower instead.

After getting out of the shower you braided your hair and put on the same clothes since yesterday so that you could at least leave your room to go and find someone to talk with and get used to a routine in the tower because you had no idea what you were doing. 

Just as you were about to reach for the door handle, it dawned on you that you had no idea how to get anywhere. You paused for a minute with your hand hovering over the handle and thought about how to find someone and ask for directions. After a few moments stuck in your thoughts, you remembered your conversation yesterday with Steve. He said that you could ask Friday for anything.

“Alright here goes nothing… Hey Friday where is everyone right now?” You spoke out to your painfully empty room hoping that something was going to happen.

“Everyone is in the kitchen for team breakfast miss.” The A.I. replied to you.

You jumped as she spoke to you because you were half expecting no answer from her at all. You timidly replied to her, “Okay can you help me get there please?”

“Of course miss, please exit your room and take a right towards the elevator.”

\--------------

After Friday guided you down to the kitchen you paused to take a breath outside the doorway in order to prepare yourself for seeing everyone and having to talk with them.

Once you were ready and had yourself mentally prepared, you rounded the corner to walk into the room to find everyone preparing their plates of food and stopped walking once Steve made eye contact with you.

“Hey it’s nice to see you! You want me to fix you a plate? I made some pancakes.” Steve beamed at you.

“Uh sure that’d be nice thanks.” You replied, giving him a short smile.

“Great come take a seat over with everyone else and I'll get you some.” He walked over and patted you on the back.

“Alright.” You told him as you started to make your way over to an empty seat at the table.

You eyed the options of seats you had and eventually took one next to Natasha that was right across from Bucky. As you pulled out the chair and sat down, Steve set your plate in front of you and went to go take his seat next to his best friend.

“Nat lowered her voice so that only you could hear “Hey aren’t those the same clothes you were wearing yesterday?”

You nodded your head and looked over at her. As she opened her mouth to reply to you “I’ll let you borrow something for today and tomorrow I’ll take you shopping okay?” she smiled at you.

“Okay that sounds good, thank you.” You flashed her a grateful smile, happy that she was being so nice to you.

Steve cleared his throat and you looked over towards him, “Nat, Buck, and I are going down to the gym after we eat do you wanna join us?” He asked when he caught your eye.

Bucky immediately shot Steve a sour look, clearly wishing that he hadn’t invited you to come with them. You tried to wipe the hurt expression off your face after catching Bucky acting so poorly about your presence and turned back to Steve. 

“Uh sure I will, I don’t have anything else to do.”

“Perfect. Stick with Nat after breakfast and she’ll help you” He nodded in Natashas direction.

Nat shot you a smile and for the rest of breakfast you quietly finished your plate, excited to start the day off with such positivity and kindness from the Avengers.

\---------------

After finishing your breakfast and helping clean up the kitchen, you followed Natasha back to her room where she lent you a pair of black leggings and a tank top to go train in.

She led you down into the gym and into a separate training room where Steve and Bucky were already there stretching out and warming up. You glanced at Steve who had his back to you, then over to Bucky who was facing you but hadn’t yet realized you entered the room. You took the opportunity of being unnoticed to stare at Bucky and take in what he looked like. He was wearing black Jogger pants with an extremely form fitting grey t-shirt that revealed and hugged all of his muscles perfectly and showed off his large flesh bicep while allowing the light to reflect perfectly from his metal one.

You looked away when you saw his face look in your direction and looked back towards Natasha who was starting to make her way over to the boys, so you followed her over in their direction as well.

When Steve noticed the two of you walking towards him he spoke up “Alright now that you’re finally here, Hotshot we’re going to test your skills and see what you can do today so that we know what we’re working with.”

You swallowed nervously with everyone’s attention on you, well everyone except Bucky who was actively ignoring the fact that you were even in the same room as him. “Okay what do you want me to do?”

“Hit me. Throw whatever punches you know how to do, I just want to see what you’re capable of so that we know what to teach you.”

You stepped up and gave Steve the best hits that you had in you, none of which did anything to harm or even move his super soldier body. Punch after punch you seemed to not even make a dent in the man until he finally told you to stop.

“Alright that's enough. It’s not much to work with but it’ll make do.”

Slightly offended you nodded your head at him and allowed him to fix your form and show you how to properly throw your fist to get the maximum pack to your punch. After him and Nat took turns teaching you and adjusting your form and getting you to land perfect punches every time, you were able to copy down what they wanted and execute it perfectly every time.

After a few more hours of technique and move training with Nat and Steve, they felt you finally had a solid enough move set that they wanted you to try sparring with one of them. They both quickly glanced at each other before turning over to Bucky, who has just been standing and observing the whole time.

“Buck get over here you’re going to spar with her.” Steve ordered over to him.

He snapped his attention over to Steve and gave him a look that read ‘What the hell are you doing’ as he made his way over to you. He took up his place in front of you and as he started to raise his fists into a ready position you stopped admiring the scent of his cologne and how tall he was towering over you, and you too raised your fists getting ready to throw and block punches.

“Alright go.” You heard Steve grunt from behind you.

You barely had time to register what Steve said before Bucky threw a punch at you with his flesh hand that you just barely blocked in time. Your mind started to slip into fight mode running a million miles an hour while trying to find the next best thing to do. You let Bucky lay a few more hits in your direction that you all struggled to block but somehow managed to get away from unscathed.

After you got Bucky’s attack pattern down you decided to try and give him a few hits as well, figuring that there’s no way to win if you don’t at least try to get some punches in. Just as you threw your first punch something felt off, your positioning wasn’t correct and Bucky saw it. Just as quick as you saw the realization of your weakness flash across Bucky’s face, you felt your legs get kicked out from underneath you.

As you realized that you were plummeting to the ground you tried to shield yourself from the impact before you realized you weren’t falling anymore, but you didn’t hit the floor either. You slowly open your eyes to find yourself entangled in Bucky’s arms as he helped you stand up again.

When you got to your feet and were standing on your own, Bucky’s face was just inches from yours and he had one hand on your shoulder while the other was resting on the curve of your waist.

“Don’t leave yourself uncovered next time.” He whispered at you before he backed away to leave the room.

You stood there for a moment in shock about what just happened, and unable to shake the feeling of Bucky’s hands placed on you. After a moment you turned around to Steve and Nat to see them looking at you in shock.

“You okay kid?” Steve asked you.

“Yeah I’m good that just shocked me that’s all.”

“Alright good. We’re done for the day so you can go do whatever you want now.” He replied with a pat on the back as he too left the training room.

Nat followed closely behind him and it was just you alone in the room. You released a breath that you didn’t know you were holding in and stood for a moment, still in shock. After a few shaky breaths you decided to head out as well because you were starving after all of that exercise.

After making yourself a sandwich and bringing it up to your room to eat you took a nice hot shower to wash all of the sweat off your body and climbed into bed to get a nice night of sleep.  
As your head hit the pillow you couldn’t fall asleep. You felt tired enough to sleep for a whole week so you didn’t know why you were unable to rest. 

After hours of thrashing around sleepless in your bed you decided to finally do something about it and go down to the kitchen to make yourself a nice hot cup of tea. That always helped calm you down and put you to sleep.

As you made your way into the hallway you couldn’t help but glance at Bucky’s door and wonder if he was sleeping or if he was having a sleepless night just like you. After your brief moment of thought you made your way into the kitchen where you heard a noise.

Your heart jumped a little bit when the sudden noise filled the quiet air of the tower and then panic started to set in. Who was in the kitchen this late at night? Did someone break into the tower? You had no idea what to do so you kept walking into the kitchen to check it out. 

Just as you made it into the doorway you collided with something, or rather someone.

“Shit I'm sorry.” A shirtless Bucky mumbled to you “People aren’t usually awake this late so I’m not used to running into people.”

“Oh no it’s fine don’t worry about it I just couldn’t sleep so I came to make some tea.”

Bucky gave you a blank expression before turning to exit the room without another word.

He couldn’t hold conversation with you and could barely look at you so he clearly hated you and wanted nothing to do with you. Your mind whirred with possibilities of what you could have possibly done to him to make him act this hostile towards you. 

You stopped thinking about it and made your tea, giving it a couple sips before heading into the elevator and riding it back up to your floor.

Just as you made it to your door you turned around to glance at the one behind you. You sighed and opened your door, set down your mug and silently setting it down on your bedside table.

You finished your tea and cuddled back into your blankets, finally feeling like you could sleep, and you had one final thought before you let sleep take you that night.

Bucky Barnes hated you, and you had to do something about it.


	3. 3 on 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How well will you fare while having to fight the Black Widow and two super soldiers at the same time? Will it end in your defeat?

You woke up to warm rays of sunlight peeking through your curtains and laying themselves all around your room and across your bed. The first thing you did was brush your hair out of your face to look over at your clock and check the time, it was 7:03 AM. 

You rolled out of bed to go find the set of clothes you were wearing the day that the Avengers found you because they were now clean and the only thing you had to wear. 

After pulling on the clothes you brushed out your hair and decided to leave it down and not do anything with it. You went into the bathroom to brush your teeth and finish up getting ready for the day, then you went back into your bedroom. You took a breath and looked around for a moment until you finally grabbed your door handle and marched out into the hallway.

You made your way into the elevator and hit the button to take you to the kitchen and you did it without Friday today. As the elevator doors opened your nose was immediately filled with smells of sizzling bacon and eggs.

You made your way towards the smell with your mouth salivating until you saw Steve leaning over the stove and presumably cooking the delicious breakfast that you were smelling.

He turned around when he heard you walk in and he gave you a soft smile before speaking to you

“Hey hotshot you’re down here early.”

“Yeah I woke up early so I took advantage of it and decided to come down and see if you wanted any help.” You returned him an equally soft and friendly smile after you replied to him.

“No I’m all set but come sit over here I want to talk to you while I cook.” He motioned with his head to the chair closest to him.

You nervously strided over to the chair that the captain motioned to with worrying thoughts filling your head, wondering what he could possibly want to talk to you about.

As if he could sense your worrying, he spoke to you in a soft tone to try and get you relaxed. 

“So how are you liking it in the tower so far? I know it’s only been a few days but I want to make sure you’re settling in okay.”

You quickly snapped out of your thoughts and answered his question, “Oh you know it’s alright, I’m still adjusting but I like it here. People are nice and the food is good.” You added, throwing a wink in his direction as he smiled at your compliment of his cooking.

“Good I’m glad” He paused for a moment before continuing his train of thought, “So no one’s giving you any trouble then?”

You stopped for a moment wondering how exactly to answer his question and if he would want to hear about Bucky acting so cold towards you.

“No not really, I haven’t spoke much with anyone but for the most part everyone’s nice and welcoming.” You told him, not wanting the captain to worry about people acting roughly with you.

“For the most part?” He asked, throwing you a concerned look.

You internally cursed at yourself for your wording choice and immediately wished you could take it back, because now you had to tell him what was going on.

“Yeah everyone is really nice to me when I talk to them. Well everyone except for Bucky. I guess him being nice to me would actually take him talking to me though.” You explained to Steve who was now sitting next to you and looked deep in thought.

After a few moments he stood up to go back over to cooking and he replied to you “I’ll talk to him for you.”

“Oh god no please don’t do that. If he doesn’t want to talk to me I get it but I don't need someone to talk to him for me then it just gets awkward.” You gave him a pleading look.

“Alright but keep me updated, I don’t want him acting like this forever we’re a team and we can’t act negatively with each other.” He threw at you.

“Aye aye Captain.” You said while giving him a sarcastic solute.

He gave you a low chuckle before some of the Avengers members piled into the room.

Just as the last person arrived, who happened to be Bucky, Steve threw you an encouraging look as he set down the plates of food for people to start digging in. You returned his look with a glare and then filled your plate up.

When you started to dig into your food Natasha nudged you to get your attention.

“Are we still going shopping today or have you found an excuse?” She asked you, a smile starting to form on her lips.

“No actually I haven’t found an excuse and I guess it’s too late now. Besides, I desperately need something to wear other than this outfit and your clothes.” You carried on the conversation with her.

“Alright we’ll leave after breakfast and hopefully be back in time for some more training.” She answered.

“Great, I love training.” You replied with a sarcastic undertone.

She gave you a small laugh and turned back to her plate.

You turned back to yours as well but gave a quick glance across the table, spotting Steve smile to himself after having heard the conversation between you and Nat. Your eyes softened at the sight of the captain, feeling warmth spread through your chest.

You were really starting to feel welcomed and like you were at home here in the Avengers tower. You took your gaze away from Steve and moved it to the seat across from you, which was filled by a certain super soldier with a metal arm.

Your eyes quickly met his as you looked in his direction because he was already staring at you. The two of you held eye contact for a moment until you nervously turned back to your plate trying not to wonder about what the soldier was thinking.

Your mind whirred with thoughts, wondering why he was staring at you in the first place, and wondering what he was thinking in that moment.

You finished the rest of your breakfast hastily, wanting to get out of this room where you were in such close proximity to the winter soldier, who always managed to get reactions out of you without even having to try.

Just as you finished, Natasha did too and she took both of your plates to go set them in the sink for someone to wash. She spun around and caught your eye and nodded over to the door.

She cleared her throat before speaking to everyone, “Hotshot and I are going out today because she needs clothes to wear, Cap can you wait to start training until we get back?”

“Of course Natasha I’d be happy to.” He replied to her while throwing you a smirk.

You rolled your eyes and smiled at him before glancing back at Natasha.

“You ready?” She asked you.  
You nodded your head and turned with her towards the door, mentally preparing yourself for shopping with Natasha.

\---------------

By the time the two of you reached the third store, you had a solid routine down. You would go into the changing room and take off your clothes in preparation of Natasha throwing piles of clothes over the door for you to try.

You repeated this process over and over again in countless stores until you had a full wardrobe. You now had clothes for every single occasion that could ever happen in so many different colors and styles. 

You felt slightly bad about all the money you were spending but Nat assured you that Tony Stark could afford it and that you had nothing to worry about.

After feeling fulfilled by the amount of trying on clothes you did and the amount of bags you and Natasha were carrying, you both agreed to head back to the tower.

You both piled all of the clothes into the car and then got in yourselves to head back and get ready for training that the captain supposedly was going to postpone and wait for the two of you to come back.

\--------------

The two of you made it back to the tower and managed to get all of the bags up to your room, which only took three trips up the elevator surprisingly.

Once you got all the bags situated into your room, you found some clothes to train in and immediately put them on so that you didn’t waste anyone’s time by making them wait for you.

You made your way out the door, not bothering to put any of your clothes in your closet because you figured it could wait until later tonight.

You made your way over to the elevator, only to find Bucky standing there waiting for the doors to open.

You went and stood next to him, waiting with him in an awkward silence because neither of you wanted to start a conversation.

Once the elevator doors opened you both slipped inside and Bucky hit the button for the gym while he glanced in your direction, clearly contemplating something.

What happened next startled you a little bit, Bucky actually started to talk to you.

“Are you going down to train too?” He asked you

Trying to contain your shock even a little bit you shot him a reply, “Oh uhm yeah Steve and Nat want me to be mission ready asap just in case they need me.”

“Alright.” He said blandly, giving you a soft expression.

You returned him a small smile but as soon as the elevator doors opened he became cold and distant again, almost immediately darting out to get to the training room. His actions were confusing and you had no idea how to read what he actually thought about you.

Once the elevator doors started to close you realised that you needed to snap out of it and get into the training room, and you did exactly that. You shot your hand out to stop the doors from closing and hurriedly made your way into the training room where you found Steve, Natasha, and Bucky all waiting for you.

Natasha glanced in your direction as you walked through the door and towards the group.

“Sure took you long enough, what the hell were you doing?”

“Language!” Cap shot out from a few feet away.

You chuckled lightly and replied to the Black Widow, “I was looking through my new clothes to find something to wear, plus the elevator was taking forever.” You added, quickly glancing in Bucky’s direction.

The captain cleared his throat to get everyone focused on him, and he started talking about what was going to happen during training.

“First, we’re all going to get Hotshot’s form under control and get her better with hand to hand combat… Then we’re going to do a 3 vs 1 to see how she handles multiple targets.”

Your eyes widened significantly at what he said, “What!? There’s no way that I can do that you guys are professionals and I’m just a stray you picked up a few days ago.”

“Relax, we won’t go full out on you and we’ll let you use your powers.” Natasha told you, trying to calm your growing nerves.

“Alright whatever let’s just get this over with.” You told them, rolling your eyes.

“That’s the spirit.” Steve smiled at you.

You spent what felt like hours throwing punches and learning new techniques from your friends and having to get adjusted and fixing your form every so often. After such an endless period of time, you were about to give up until the captain spoke up.

“All right, I’m liking it. I think you’re ready to take us on.”

Your stomach dropped to the floor with anxiety and you gave your head a quick nod, trying to prepare yourself for fighting off the three Avengers.

The three of them circled you, one on every side waiting for the perfect time to strike. Just as you saw Natasha pick up into a run and charge after you, you focused all of your attention on her. While you were focused on Nat, the winter soldier came up behind you and tried to kick your feet out from underneath you which you dodged just in time and you used the momentum from your dodge to give him a hard left hook that made him stagger off to the side.

Your hand hurt like hell after punching Bucky but you gave it no attention as you surveyed the other two Avengers who were now full on sprinting at you from either side of the room, Natasha was closer than Steve so you decided to take care of her first.

Nat reached you quickly and you had barely any time to think, just barely dodging the right hook she threw your way. You countered with a kick to her legs which she used as an excuse to use her favorite thigh choke hold move on you.

Just as you felt her thighs clamp mercilessly to your neck, a deafening alarm sounded that made you jump.

Natasha quickly hopped off of you as Friday made her voice prevalent through all of the noise.

“Mr. Stark requires everyone’s presence in meeting room A, he says it is urgent” She stated.

“Yeah I could’ve guessed with all of the ruckus going on.” You muttered to yourself as you quickly piled into the elevator with Natasha and the two super soldiers.

\------------------

As the four of you piled into the meeting room and took your seat, Tony stood and began talking.

“Alright now that we have everyone here, we got a mission guys, a big one too.”

He paused for a moment before continuing, “Hydra is planning an attack on the president’s life and we need to be there to make sure that doesn’t happen. Hotshot you’re staying here, we don’t know what you’re capable of yet and you’re not fully capable of controlling yourself.”

“Alright that makes sense.” You spoke to him, looking around the room at everyone else who was now glanced in your direction.

“Barnes you too, I’m not risking you getting captured by Hydra again and the kid needs a babysitter so who is more fit for the job than a creepy ex assassin.”

Bucky gave a tight nod to Tony before he continued speaking.

“Alright because it’s urgent you’ll get a debrief on the way, everyone suit up and meet on the roof in 5.” he concluded, everyone piling out of the room.

Once everyone made their way out of the meeting room, it was just you and Bucky left who awkwardly glanced in your direction before leaving you sitting alone.

You sat there for a moment wondering how the hell you were going to get by without there being anyone in the tower other than Bucky. You were going to have to be by yourself and do everything yourself for the foreseeable future since the winter soldier sure as hell wasn’t going to do anything with you.

You stood up and let out a sigh before turning towards the door to go to the kitchen and eat dinner. Alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slight thaw with Bucky? Not really though I'm just teasing, there isn't going to be a small breakthrough for at least a couple more chapters. They don't call it a slow burn for nothing I guess :P Hope you enjoyed


	4. The Syringe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things are starting to get better, except for nightmares and flashbacks. Why the hell is your past coming to haunt you?

As you rounded the doorway into the kitchen you were greeted with nothing but silence as you made your way over to the refrigerator. Just as you got out all of the ingredients to make yourself your favorite dinner you heard the quinjet roar to life above you. The sound slowly started to fade as you began preparing your dinner until the team was too far away and you were left in the kitchen in silence again.

Once you put the dinner into the oven and set a timer you took a seat and got out your phone to mindlessly scroll through your social medias. As you were laughing at a particularly hilarious meme, Friday alerted you that your timer was up and you snapped your attention back over to the oven. You took out your food and set it on top of the stove while you turned off the oven and went to go find yourself a plate.

After searching through a couple different cupboards you finally found the plates and grabbed yourself one, making your way back to the stove so that you could dish yourself out some of your delicious dinner.

As you grabbed your silverware you debated for a moment if you should eat in the common room because there was no one there to eat with you or scold you for not eating in the kitchen. Your thoughts briefly considered asking Bucky to eat with you but you almost immediately shook that thought away because you couldn’t stop thinking about how awkward that would be.

You ultimately decided to eat in the common room because who doesn’t love watching a movie on a big flat screen TV while they eat?

As you exited the kitchen and made your way into the hallway with your plate you saw a familiar figure walking towards you, presumably making his way to the kitchen. As he got closer you bit your lip wondering if you should try talking to him or not.

Your nerves got the better of you when he was a few feet away from you and you couldn’t hold back what you wanted to say to the winter soldier,

“Hey Bucky, I made dinner and there’s still some left on top of the oven if you want any.”

He stopped walking for a moment and you did too, waiting for a reply from him. He looked over to you and held eye contact with you before nodding his head and pulling his lips into a tight smile.

“Thank you.” He replied sincerely.

“Yeah no problem.” You returned a smile back to him before breaking eye contact and continuing to walk towards the common room, now itching to do anything to get your mind off of Bucky.

When you finally made it into the common room you sat down on the couch opposite of the TV and started up Netflix to put on your favorite movie.

Over the course of the movie you had finished your dinner and managed to get quite sleepy so the second that the credits started to roll you decided to go back to the kitchen and wash the dishes you left in there earlier.

You made it to the kitchen and didn’t see dirty dishes anywhere, and you paused for a moment wondering where they were. You quickly realised that it must have been Bucky who washed them for you and made a mental note to thank him for it next time you see him. With that you turned to exit the room and quickly made your way up to your bedroom.

You got to the door and stumbled inside, almost falling over because of how disoriented and tired you were. You opted to not change into Pyjamas as you were already wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt and you figured that was good enough to sleep in.

You face planted into your bed and quickly fell into a deep sleep, letting dreams wash over you all night.

\-------------------

Pain coursed through your veins and you could feel the increasing heat radiating off of your body until you eventually burst into flames. You prepared yourself for the pain of being lit on fire, your thoughts racing and wondering if you were actually going to die in some warehouse in the middle of nowhere surrounded by a bunch of lunatic scientists.

After a few minutes of being stuck in panicked thoughts trying to ignore the pain of being on fire, you realized that there wasn’t even any pain. You snapped your eyes open and shot your focus over to the scientists who were now cowering in the corner, and then over to the guard who was now shouting into his walkie-talkie for backup and shoving the barrel of a gun in your face.

You heard him growl at you to put out the fire or else you would be shot, but you didn’t even know how you lit yourself on fire, let alone how to put it out. The guard counted down from three and he said he would shoot you if he reached zero before you put yourself out.

You screamed at him through your panic trying to plead with him and explain that you had no idea what was going on. The man clearly didn’t listen and began counting, screaming each number with even more aggression. 

When you heard the man say one, you screamed and panicked, which only made the fire around you double in size. With that the man fired his gun at you, abandoning his counting strategy and going straight for lethal force with your new found retaliation. The shot rang out through the room and you felt the fire around you immediately go out as you looked down to find blood spurting out of your shoulder.

As you reached your hand up to examine the fresh wound you felt a sharp sting in your neck and your vision started fading. You looked to your side just in time to see a needle being pulled out of you and the guard that shot you smirking in your face.

Your body fell to the floor, too weak to do anything, and the last thing you remember was being slammed down on a table, fearful for your life.

\--------------------

You woke up gulping for air with a thin layer of sweat covering your body and you frantically looked around trying to steady your mind and find something to give any indication of where you were or calm your mind.

Your eyes drank in your surroundings, finding everything familiar and immediately identifying the room as your bedroom at the Avengers compound.

You steadied your breathing and managed to stop gasping for air and slow your heart rate down so that it wasn’t almost pounding out of your chest. After a few minutes of sitting on your bed, you decided you weren’t going to risk going back to bed and looked at the clock on your bedside table. You groaned at the fact that it was 6:07 AM and slipped out of your covers to go change your clothes.

While you were standing in your closet you opted to change into a pair of leggings and a sports bra so that you could go down to the gym. You still felt the adrenaline of your nightmare coursing through you and you wanted to get rid of it by going to workout.

You made your way out of your room and down to one of the training rooms and immediately found yourself drawn to the punching bag, wanting to punch the shit out of something after your horrid flashback.

As you lined yourself up and started throwing punches you immediately felt better. Memories and flashbacks stopped showing themselves in your brain and went back down into the deep dark depths of your mind where they were usually stored and you started to feel better. 

After beating up the poor punching bag for an hour or so you finally felt satisfied and like all of your problems were successfully gone and stored back away where they came from. You stopped to take a swig of water from your water bottle and decided to run on the treadmill to really make sure that you worked your problems away.

After running a little over 5 miles you felt exhausted and satisfied with how hard you worked. Contemplating whether you should stop and leave the gym or go to lift weights, your stomach growled an answer.

You checked the time and saw that it was almost 9 AM and you realized that with working out for as long as you did, it was no surprise that your stomach was growling so loudly.

You went into the kitchen and made yourself some eggs and toast and scarfed them down as fast as you could in an attempt to calm your very angry stomach, and it worked because once you finished your meal you felt so much better. 

After washing your dishes you decided to go up to your room and take a bath to calm your screaming muscles and give yourself a chance to relax.

You pulled your favorite book from the shelf in your room and went to your bathroom to strip your sweat soaked clothes and hop into your tub to soak all of your wear and tears away.

\-----------------

After soaking for a long period of time and reading a significant amount of your book you decided to wash your hair and then get out to go make yourself some lunch.

You walked into your closet and picked out a pair of leggings with an oversized T-shirt that stopped at your mid-thighs.

Once you threw on your clothes you exited your room and made your way towards the elevator so that you could go into the kitchen and make yourself a sandwich to eat. You made your way towards the fridge and quickly made your meal and then took it into the common room to go watch whatever was on TV while you were eating in order to fill the silence of the tower.

You finished your sandwich and laid back on the couch you were sitting on to just relax and enjoy what was playing on the television. After a few episodes you started to feel droopy and you had every intention of going back up to your room and nap, but you clearly didn’t because the next time you opened your eyes it was dark outside and a foreign movie was playing on the TV screen.

You sat up and blinked a few times to clear your foggy eyes, looking around to take in your surroundings and wondering how long ago you fell asleep because as you could recall it most definitely was not dark outside before you fell asleep.

You looked at the clock and saw 7 PM and your jaw almost fell open in shock at how long your nap was. You immediately jumped to your feet which you regretted because you almost fell over with how fatigued and disoriented you were.

You caught yourself by holding onto the edge of the couch and took a moment to steady yourself before standing all the way up again. Once you felt good enough to walk you considered going into the kitchen for dinner but eventually opted against it because you didn’t feel even remotely hungry and all you could think about was how heavy your eyelids felt.

You stumbled towards the elevator and hit the button for your floor before leaning against the wall to rest your body while you waited to be taken to your bedroom. When you heard the soft ding and whir of the elevator arriving at your floor and opening its doors, you stood up and started to walk out.

The second that your door came into view, so did the winter soldier. The two of you made eye contact as you walked towards each other and you lifted your hand to give him a small wave before dropping it back down to your side.

He gave you a soft smile and a nod before the two of you finally passed each other and couldn’t see each other anymore. You silently sighed once you reached your door, wishing you would’ve started some conversation or tried to do something other than wave at him.

You were getting sick of constantly worrying about why Bucky hated you and what the two of you were doing, all you wanted was for him to not hate you anymore. He seemed like he would be an amazing friend and someone that would be really comforting and you longed to have a friend like that in the tower.

You pulled yourself out of your thoughts and opened the door to your room so that you could get inside and go to sleep in hopes to rid yourself of how fatigued you felt. You took your clothes off as you walked towards your closet to pick out and put on some pyjamas before you threw yourself on top of your bed to finally enjoy the sleep that you felt so deprived of.

Your last thought that you could muster before you fell asleep was, tomorrow you were going to talk to Barnes and get him to open up to you, no matter how hard it was or how long it was going to take. You were going to put the effort in to crack his cold hard exterior that he puts up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took me way longer than I wanted it to and I'm not to proud of it but eh. I promise it's going to get juicy within the next couple chapters so just stick around it'll be worth it :D


	5. Movie Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about not posting for a while I just kinda wasn't feeling good about what I was writing. Hopefully you enjoy though, I powered through to get this chapter out to you guys!!

You were slammed down onto the table and felt restraints click around all four of your limbs, as well as your neck. You tugged on them slightly trying to try and gauge how strong they were. Since you couldn’t move your head, you had to go based off of what you could feel and you could feel cold metal that wouldn’t budge. There clearly was no getting out of whatever you were doing on this table.

After a few moments of trying to gently tug your limbs out from where they were being kept, you heard a deep voice come from above your head.

“Well hello there little girl.” The figure paused to reach out to brush it’s hand across your cheek before continuing, “You’re quite the popular one with the scientific community, you know that right? I had to jump through lots of hoops to get to the front of the line and see you. Hopefully I can make this worth everyone’s while.” He stepped into view and you could see the sinister grin plastered on his face.

“What the hell do you mean worth everyone’s while?” You half shouted at him.

The man didn’t respond to you, he only turned around to grab something off of the table behind him. Once he was done messing around with whatever it was, he turned around to meet your eyes.

“No anything but that please!” You shouted at the man.

“I’m so sorry little one but if this works you will be the ultimate weapon, so I have to try. For everyone’s sake.” He brushed a hand along the inside of your elbow and paused once he found what he was looking for.

“Mmm this one will do nicely.” He whispered to you and then you felt the needle pierce your skin and then you felt cold flow through your body.

A tear slid down your cheek as you felt the cold seep into every place on your body, not leaving anything untouched. Goosebumps threatened their way to your skin as you tried to keep calm and not have another outburst, you really did not want to be shot and sedated again.

“Now my child, keeping calm wont show me if my serum worked or not hm? I’m going to need you to give me something or I will be forced to do something you won’t like.”

“I’m not going to do anything for you.” You spat the words at him as you felt rage bubbling up inside you.

“Oh but girl you already have.” A smug grin broke out across his face as a violent wind pushed his hair around his face.

Wind? There weren’t any fans or vents in here where was the wind coming from?

Almost as if he could read your thoughts, he answered your question. “It’s you little one, I gave you the wind.”

With fear rising inside of you, the wind picked up. You faintly heard the screams of the scientists as the whirlwind you were creating caught on fire. You were snapped to attention when you heard an alarm sound through the facility. You knew that meant you were probably about to be met with lethal force if you didn’t calm yourself down, so you closed your eyes and took deep breaths until your powers subsided. Your restraints were lifted and you hesitantly sat up, looking around the room for who released you.

You saw a guard at the edge of the room, who was standing next to the scientist who you scorched only moments before. Wanting to get the smell of seared flesh out of your nose, you hopped up and allowed the guard to escort you back to your room. 

Once you got inside, the titanium door slammed behind you and you heard the numerous locks click behind you. With a sigh you sat down on your bed, lighting your palm on fire, putting it out again, and lighting it back on fire over and over again until you could do it with ease.

There wasn’t anything for you to do in the cell so all you did was learn to control your powers in hopes of one day being able to use them to escape.

An alarm blared it’s way through the facility that you could faintly hear through your heavily guarded and insulated door.

You shot your attention to your door once you heard a lock click open. You stared in disbelief wondering what you were about to go through because you were never let out unless it was for an experiment.

The last lock on your door clicked open and you saw a strange man that you’ve never seen before burst in towards you.

“With me. Now.” He growled at you.

You immediately complied because to be honest this man terrified you with all of the visible scars he had plastered over his face and how huge his muscles were.

The man led you towards the lab and pushed you towards the experiment table. You hesitantly layed down on the table and let the restraints take their familiar place around your limbs as you looked over to the large man who was in the room with you.

“We’re being compromised but we’re not done with you yet. We have to finish our greatest weapon before we can be fully wiped out at least.” He turned around and grinned at you with a syringe in hand.

You breathed deeply as the man made his way over to you and harshly stabbed the syringe into your arm. The dark liquid slowly disappeared into your veins as you felt needles stab their way through your system.

This syringe was by far the most painful, or so you thought. Just as you thought he was done he took another syringe off the table and stabbed that one into you as well.

This one felt like razor blades were slicing you open over and over again from the inside and you couldn’t help but cry out in pain.

As you screamed, a tornado formed around you. It was fascinating that you could make just a simple tornado with your thoughts and it was even more fascinating the longer you held it. Chunks of earth, water, and fire swirled their way around the air and it was beautiful, you had never seen anything like it.

Once you were distracted by your powers and reveling in how powerful you were, you didn’t realize the man sneaking behind you until it was too late. You turned to face him but before you could make it the whole way, you felt something hit your head with such extreme force that you blacked out.

\-----------------

You inhaled sharply as you sat up, breaking yourself from the fog of your nightmare. You dragged your hands over your face before you glanced over in the direction of your clock. It said 7am and you sighed. Not bad, you got quite a bit of sleep even though you don’t feel the slightest bit rested.

You got up and out of your bed with a quiet groan and made your way over to your closet. You threw on a pair of loose running shorts and a sports bra, and you put a light jacket on as well before exiting your room and making your way to the elevator.

You pressed the button for the training floor so that you could go get in your work out and make sure you were in good shape.

You made your way over to the weights first and used those until your muscles felt like jelly, then you went for a run.

After a few miles, you decided to stop there for the day and you went into one of the rooms that were designed to train with powers. The walls were extremely dense and they could withstand almost anything.

You spent quite a bit of time in here trying to perfect using your water and earth powers. You already had an amazing control over your fire powers because they were the first ones you received and you naturally used them more because they were the most familiar. Controlling the wind was the easiest one by far and it required little thought to actually use them. 

Your time in the Avengers tower has proven extremely beneficial towards your power development and in just the week or so you’ve been training and using the resources that the tower gives you, you’ve already significantly improved.

After working with your powers until your hands grew sore, you eventually decided that it was time to go get some food. You got off of the floor and stood, making your way to the exit while you thought about what you would be eating.

Once the elevator doors slid open and you slipped inside, you decided that you were going to make yourself a sandwich. You spent the whole elevator ride to the kitchen salivating at the thought of having your first meal of the day.

You finally arrived and the doors broke open, and you practically ran to the fridge you were so excited to eat. You hastily threw together your sandwich, forgetting a plate because you knew that you would eat it too fast to even have to worry about one.

You stood in the middle of the kitchen scarfing down your meal and as you made it to your last couple of bites you heard a faint roar coming from outside. You didn’t think anything of the noise until you were done with your sandwich and it was beginning to grow extremely loud.

Just as you thought you were going to go deaf if the noise got any closer and louder, it suddenly stopped. You wondered what the noise was and a panicked thought surged through you, what if we’re under attack? You had made up your mind to go get Bucky and help him defend the tower until your thoughts drifted back to the day that the Avengers left for their mission.

The noise you just heard was the same noise as when the rest of the team left a few days ago. Your mind slowly came to the conclusion that the Avengers were back and you had to contain your excitement while you waited for them to come inside.

You started to hear footsteps and you excitedly made your way towards the noise until the person came into view and you were met with a bright smile.

“Hi Cap!” You beamed at him while making your way over to him.

“Hey Hotshot, how’ve you been doing?”

You got to the Captain and he enveloped you in a warm hug, holding your head to his chest and using his other hand to rub your back gently.

“I’ve been good. I even kept up with training.” You smirked against his chest.

“That’s what I love to hear, I’ll be putting that to the test.” 

“Great just what I love to hear.” You groaned at him.

He gave you a small chuckle before releasing you to go do whatever it is he needed to do post-mission. You turned your head and saw Tony, still in his Iron Man suit.

He stopped and gave you a pat on the shoulder, then kept walking through in the direction of Cap. Everyone else gave you small smiles and continued after whoever was in front of them. 

After everyone had made their way to wherever they were going, probably to discuss the mission, you decided to make your way back to your room and take a quick shower to get off all of the dried sweat that was caking your body from your training session earlier.

You quickly scrubbed and washed yourself and then went into your closet to pick out and put on clothes. You eventually decided to wear a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt and walked out all dressed and ready to sit and read for a little while.

You had just opened up your book when you heard Friday’s voice ring out through your room,

“Miss, you are requested in the living area by Mr. Stark.”

You gave a small groan and stood up to walk over to your door. You made your way out into the hallway and you saw Bucky a few paces ahead of you. The both of you made your way into the elevator and the doors slid shut, taking you two down towards the living area.

The elevator ride was awkward and the tension in the air was thick as none of you dared to say anything, until you finally spoke up.

“Why don’t you ever talk to me?” You asked in a small voice, almost immediately regretting your decision as he looked towards you and your cheeks flushed.

He stared at you for a moment and searched your eyes trying to find the words to say, and just as he opened his mouth to speak the doors slid open and you made your way out into the hallway embarrassed.

Bucky stood in the elevator in shock for a minute before leaving to follow you towards where the rest of the team was waiting.

The two of you stopped when you saw everyone cuddled on the couches with bowls of popcorn and Stark was standing there, staring and waiting to explain what was going on.

“Movie night!” He yelled out to the two of you.

You rolled your eyes looking back at Bucky, with tears threatening to make an appearance in your eyes.

You pushed the feeling deep down and made your way over to settle into a seat between Steve and Natasha, leaving no possibility of having Bucky sit near you to make the situation between the two of you any worse.

You grabbed a handful of popcorn out of Steve’s bowl and smirked at him as he pretended to be hurt by your actions. You turned your attention to the screen when you heard the movie start to play and almost smirked at Tony’s movie choice.

Staring at the bright letters on the screen you read ‘Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope’ and slowly became immersed in the film as the minutes ticked by.

Slowly your eyelids began to feel heavy and before you realized it and tried to fight it, sleep took you over sitting right there on the couch with your team members.

\------------

You slowly started to regain consciousness as you felt yourself being swayed back and forth, almost like you were walking. 

You opened your eyes as you heard a door open and felt yourself begin to sway again. You immediately realized that you were being carried and jumped slightly, which clearly startled whoever was carrying you.

They set you down and began to speak, and you immediately recognized the voice.

“Sorry I didn’t mean to wake you up but we didn’t want you to sleep on the couch and since I already have to come in this direction for my room I took you up here.”

You blinked a couple times to remove the fog over your vision before clearing your throat to answer,

“Um thank you, that was really nice of you.” Your voice came out quiet and small due to exhaustion.

“No problem.” The soldier that was now standing over by your door smiled warmly at you, “Now make sure you get some rest, Steve was talking about intense training tomorrow.”

You let out a small groan before letting your head fall back onto your pillow and you heard a faint chuckle before the soft click of your door shutting and you smiled to yourself about how nice the soldier was being, before you cringed realizing why he was being so kind.

Your interaction with him in the elevator must have made him feel bad about acting so cold towards you. You internally cringed as you replayed that conversation, or rather lack thereof, before rolling onto your side and eventually letting sleep wash over you because it’s exactly what you desperately needed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to incorporate more backstory to get the plot rolling so there's nothing that gets that going like some good old fashioned nightmares right? :D


	6. It's Official

You woke up to the sound of your alarm and lazily rolled your body over to go shut it off. You layed in bed for what felt like a few minutes until you heard Friday’s voice ring out into your empty room.

“Miss, I suggest you get up. Your alarm went off twenty minutes ago and training begins in 10.”

You’ve never jolted upright faster in your life, not even when you had insane nightmare flashbacks. You stumbled quickly out of bed and over to your closet, muttering curse words the whole way there and scolding yourself for laying in bed for so long.

You pulled out the first items of athletic clothing that you could find and pulled them on while you were still in your closet. You rushed back into your bedroom and grabbed your shoes before you opened your door and bolted into the hallway. You speed walked towards the elevator and pushed the button to open the door and quickly slipped inside asking Friday to take you into the training room.

You knelt down and hastily shoved your shoes on your feet and laced them up before the elevator slid to a stop and the doors opened.

“Cap just sent me to look for you. You’re late.” Natasha grumbled at you.

“Sorry I fell back asleep after my alarm went off and then Friday woke me up with only ten minutes to get ready and so I rushed myself out the door as fast as I could and I even didn’t have my shoes on until I got into the elevato-” You rambled on while walking into the training room with Natasha until the sight in front of you forced you to stop.

Everyone was staring at you waiting for you impatiently. Cap, Tony, Bucky, Sam, and Wanda were all in front of you in various positions which all conveyed annoyance and you immediately felt your face flush in embarrassment.

“Sorry I didn’t mean to be late I just-”

“Yeah we heard it princess. Even the part about you walking shoeless through my hallways.” Tony grumbled at you from where he was standing.

You didn’t think it was possible but your face flushed even further. You were sure that you looked like the equivalent of someone trying to be a ghost with a white sheet draped over them. You aimed your eyes towards the floor because all you wanted to do was curl up into a ball and disappear with the way everyone’s undivided attention was on you, until Steve cleared his throat and everyone was forced to divert their gazes over to him.

“Alright since the star of the show is here we can start. Everyone’s sparring with Hotshot today.”

You had to restrain yourself from dropping your jaw open in shock and you looked around at everyone’s smug grins that they had plastered all over their faces. It took you a minute until you realized that they already knew about this and were just waiting for the Captain to announce it to watch your reaction.

“You guys suck you know that right.”

“Your sparring matches will be the judge of that actually sweetcheeks.” Tony snickered at you.

You let out a huff before turning to the Captain, “So who’s up first then?” You asked him.

“We are.” The Captain spoke up while he, Sam, and Wanda all took a step forward and you felt your mouth dry as your mind wondered how you could compare against Wanda Maximoff by herself, let alone paired with the Falcon and a super soldier with a shield.

Everyone else cleared out of the room and made their way into a sectioned off room that had a glass wall looking into the room so that they could watch and see how well you did.

Your confidence wasn’t the best about this situation, especially since you were up against three highly skilled Avengers and you were just some stray that they picked up at a mall not too long ago.

You pulled your attention away from your thoughts and directed it towards the three Avengers standing in front of you and you picked up on a small nod that the Captain gave to Sam. Any other person would’ve missed it but your brain was switched into fight mode and you noticed anything and everything that went on when that happened.

It didn’t take you any more than a millisecond to realize what was happening when Sam started to sprint at you and attempt to take your attention away from the ball of red mist that was also hurdling it’s way towards you.

You picked up an air current to move Wanda’s powers away from you and direct them straight towards Sam, where they landed a direct blow to his chest and he shot back a few feet before landing on his back with a loud oof.

With one down and two to go you turned your attention back to Wanda and Steve, only to notice that he wasn’t where he was a few moments ago. 

You turned to your right to see the Captain charging at you with no intention of stopping. You acted as quickly as you could and heated up your body to the point where it would burn him if he touched you, but not enough to do anything too severe.

With there being no physical indication that your body was extremely beefed up temperature wise right now, the Captain had no idea as he stretched his arm to grab you by the waist and slam you into the floor.

He pulled back in pain almost immediately after he belted you to the ground, and the force of his slam was slowed by you reversing the air flow to cushion your fall. While it still hurt a little bit, you were barely phased and took the opportunity of Cap being immersed in his burn that stretched over his entire forearm to kick his legs from underneath him and conjure chunks of rock to keep him down and pinned out of the way.

You stood up with two down one to go and you turned to Wanda just in time to see a flash of red come flying at you and hit you in the shoulder. You recoiled and grasped your shoulder in pain before turning back to her and sneering before raising both hands out to your side.

You tried to ignore the pain that was pulsing its way through your arm as Wanda mimicked your pose and started to grow chunks of red mist in her palms. You did the same, only one hand had a growing chunk of rock and the other had a raging piece of fire that was steadily growing.

You broke out into a smirk and held the two chunks of your powers steady as you sprinted with all of your strength towards Wanda and you caught what you thought was a flash of fear in her eyes before she hurled her powers directly at your chest and you threw your fire at them where they exploded into red dust and you hadn’t even faltered a single step.

Wanda clearly didn’t have any idea what to do anymore because you gained on her quick enough to grab her arm with the hand that was harboring your chunk of rock and it immediately took the form of her arm as she looked down in horror at her arm as it slowly disappeared behind an ever growing wave of earth.

It didn’t take long before your powers stretched to encase her whole body, leaving her head open so that she could breathe. You looked back at the mess in the training room and took a deep breath once you saw that all the threats were eliminated.

You almost forgot that you were being watched for that whole fight until the door burst open to reveal the other three Avengers that were in the side room just a few moments ago.

With that, you removed the rock that was encasing your friends and allowed them to be free.

“Amazing job sestra I can tell you have amazing potential.” Wanda whispered as she walked towards the group.

You returned her compliment with a smile and turned your attention back to the group that was carefully watching you.

“Alright that was impressive princess I can’t deny it but round two is about to be a bitch I hope you know” Tony glared at you before tapping his chest and letting the nano tech encase his body.

“Oh it’s on old man.” You threw him a playful glare as Sam, Cap, and Wanda all rushed out of the room leaving you to commence the ass beating with someone other than them.

“I just want to clarify that I’m not even the oldest one in this room right now, speaking of… Barnes could you do that faster please?” 

You whipped your head around to see the winter soldier charging at you with a knife and you conjured a rock spike to duel with and block a stab just in time.

You and Bucky commenced in a high speed knife fight and neither of you could land any blows on the other until you took an opening to grab his flesh arm and heat up your hand to burn him. He hissed in pain and faltered for a moment which gave you enough time to hurl a ball of rock into him with so much force that it slammed him back and it started to wrap itself around his body in order to incapacitate him during the fight.

He managed to charge forward and land a clean but shallow slice across your upper arm before he finally succumbed to the rock wrapping itself around his legs and he couldn’t move anymore.

You looked down to see blood pooling your arm and didn’t realise when Natasha landed a swift kick to your jaw and you recoiled a few feet back into something hard. It took you too long to realize that what you were pressed up against Iron man and before you could move away or attack, he grabbed both of your arms to render them useless.

You tried as hard as you could to get out of his grip, first lighting your hands on fire which clearly did nothing, then trying to use water as lubrication to wiggle your way out of his vice grip. Nothing worked and you almost lost all hope and gave up. Almost.

As Natasha stalked over to you to presumably finish you off you used your upper body strength to push the rest of your body upwards and swing your legs out to kick her and send her flying across the room with a chunk of rock hurling its way after her and officially take her out of the game.

This caused a slight falter in Tony’s grip and you snaked one arm out of his grip in order to spin yourself around to face him and you slid your free hand onto his wrist joint before heating it and getting it so hot that you were sure something would happen, but it didn’t.

“Sorry sweetheart this stuff can’t melt. You wanna surrender or am I going to have to take you out?”

You responded by sending your knee up into his jaw which didn’t do anything yet again and you felt a cold hand snake around your windpipe and apply enough pressure to make you see stars.

“Night night sweetheart.” You heard Tony’s smug voice call out and just as your vision went out and you were knocked unconscious.

\---------------

You slowly regained consciousness and you heard the steady beeping of monitors which made you abruptly sit up, startling whoever was sitting next to you.

“Hey princess feeling better?” Tony’s voice rang in your ears as you took in the sight of the med bay.

“You fucking knocked me out what do you think.” You scowled at him.

He struggled to contain his smile before he spoke, “I’ll take that one as a yes.” He paused and thought for a moment and then continued, “I took you down here to make sure you weren’t too hurt and to get that stitched up.” He pointed his finger at your right arm that was sewn shut and bruised.

“Barnes managed to get you pretty good in the arm that Wanda hit you in so it’s gonna hurt pretty bad but you’ll be fine.”

“Okay.” You replied coldly. “Anything else you want or can I leave?” You asked.

“Well if you must know… While you were out I talked it over with the rest of the team and they think that you’re ready.”

“Ready? For what?”

“To be an official Avenger, you know get a public introduction and get your own suit. All that fun stuff.”

“Wait does that mean I get to go on missions now?”

“Yeah it does.”

You broke out into a smile and practically threw yourself into Tony’s arms and gave him a big hug. He responded by giving your head a few pats before peeling you off of him.

“Alright that’s enough of that, go pick out your outfit because we have to leave in a few hours to make it to your press conference.”

“Wait, you chose tonight to make it official? I just got my ass handed to me on a red and gold platter and now I’m expected to be seen in public?”

“Yup. Now hurry up, clock's ticking.”

You scrambled your way out of the room and slipped into the elevator, asking Friday to take you to the kitchen because you were starving.

The doors slid open and you made your way over to the kitchen and you saw everyone already standing around, seeming like they were waiting for you.

“Well if it isn’t the girl of the hour, how are you feeling?” Cap beamed at you as he made is way over to hug you and congratulate you.

“Been better but I’m starving.”

“Well good thing you can eat this sandwich on your way up to your room where we need to help you get ready. We don’t have long and you need to look good.” Natasha spoke, gesturing to her and Wanda.

You groaned and picked up the sandwich before allowing yourself to be dragged out by Wanda and Natasha. You quickly scarfed down the sandwich and finished it just as you walked through your bedroom door and let the two girls get to work doing whatever it is they needed to do.

They worked around each other, holding up different dresses and pairs of heels trying to decide what would make you look your absolute best. They did your hair and makeup once they decided on a dress and a pair of heels and they made quick work of it while the three of you talked and bonded with each other.

Just as Natasha and Wanda were putting on the final touches, Friday's voice echoed into the room.

“Mr. Stark says that the three of you need to be in the common room in 15 minutes Miss.”

“Okay tell him we’ll be there.” You replied to the A.I.

After a few more minutes, Wanda and Nat gave you the go ahead to slip on your dress and strap your heels on before giving them a twirl and showing them how you looked. They both applauded and gave you encouraging words.

“Damn you look hot. Everyone’s going to be drooling over you I can tell.” Natasha smirked at you.

“Yes I agree with that. You look stunning.” Wanda smiled warmly at you.

The dress they gave you had long black lace sleeves to hide your stitches and bruises along your right arm and it hugged your curves perfectly before stopping right at your knees. It made you look incredible but it was still formal at the same time.

The three of you made your way out and down into the common room with a few minutes to spare and you were greeted by the rest of the team. They were all dressed in nice suits that were clearly tailored to their large muscular frames and they all stood up to make their way over to you when you walked into the room.

Everyone went through and complimented your looks, giving you a hug or a shoulder squeeze before making their way towards the door to get out and pile into the cars. Bucky just gave you a small nod and smile before holding the door open for you to exit the Avengers tower.

You piled into the SUV that had Wanda and Natasha in it and in just a few minutes you were off to who knows where in order to make it official that you were a badass superhero. The ride took maybe half an hour and when you got inside the big building it was swarming with people who were all taking pictures or recording for the news. 

You stuck extremely close to Natasha the whole night because all of these people in one room made you anxious and Nat made you feel safe and protected.

The conference was extremely boring, it was just a bunch of old men in suits talking and Tony talking on your behalf until you had to answer a bunch of questions and sign these things called the Accords.

Everything went smoothly and you even gave out some autographs and took pictures with people until it was time to leave and all the Avengers gathered outside the building to pile into the SUVs that came to take you and the rest of the team back to the tower.

\--------------

By the time the team got back to the tower you were exhausted and all of you piled into the elevator, making your way up to your respective floors and eventually it was just you and Bucky left.

It almost made you jump in shock when you heard his husky voice break the silence of the elevator to talk to you.

“I hope your arm is okay, I didn’t get the chance to talk to you earlier but I want you to know I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

The elevator doors slid open and the two of you walked down the hallway together while you talked.

“Oh yeah I’m alright, it doesn’t hurt too bad and it’s all stitched up so I’ll be fine.”

The two of you stopped at your doors and faced each other to continue your conversation before slipping away for the night.

“Good I’m glad. Have a good night then.” He smiled at you before opening his door and made his way inside to disappear for the night.

You did the same and slipped out of your dress and you took a quick shower, threw on some pyjama shorts and a tank top, then practically collapsed onto your bed. You fell asleep almost as soon as your head hit the pillow because of how exhausting your day was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't really have anything to say but I hope you enjoyed and just stick around a tiny bit longer because let me just say that next chapter gets...Interesting to say the least.


	7. Party Time

The next few weeks were extremely boring. There were no new missions to go on and Tony wasn’t throwing any parties so it was just like reliving the same day over and over again on loop. Wake up, train, eat, sleep, and repeat.

Nothing new was happening with Bucky either. While he was friendly with you, he still barely talked to you. You only ever got small smiles thrown your way or the occasional short blunt conversations with you when you were stuck in a room together. 

They all went somewhere along the lines of,

“Hey.”

“Hi.”

“How are you doing today?”

“Oh I’m doing fine, what about you?”

This was all followed by one of two things, either more small talk or some lame excuse usually made by Bucky to go be in a different room and get far far away from you. You were starting to get extremely sick of all the crappy interactions, but at least they were positive ones and he wasn’t actively ignoring you so that was a plus.

Once the third week of boringness rolled around you were itching for an opportunity to get any form of excitement no matter what it would be, because it had been way too long since something interesting happened.

You let your body naturally wake up now, not needing an alarm anymore. Because of how long your body was forced to wake up early for training, you were used to it at this point and didn’t have to have Friday alert you and scare the crap out of you every time it was time to wake up.

You rolled out of bed after rubbing the sleep out of your eyes and walked over to your closet to step inside and go pick out a pair of leggings, a sports bra, and a t-shirt to wear before slipping out and into your bathroom to get ready.

While you were in the bathroom you brushed your teeth, got dressed, and put your hair up, following the flow of all the usual mundane daily activities that had your skin crawling for change and excitement. You eventually forced yourself out of the door and made your way out into the elevator and hit the button for it to take you down into the training room and you stood in silence while waiting to be taken down to your destination.

Once the elevator halted and it’s doors parted to reveal the all familiar training floor, you stepped out and made your way to where the team always was while waiting for everyone to arrive. You arrived at the spot and were slightly puzzled when you saw that nobody was there, only to glance at the clock and find that you were 15 minutes early.

You let out a long sigh and decided to stretch yourself out while you were waiting for everyone to arrive, in hopes that it would give you some upper hand in combat. You knew deep down that it definitely wouldn’t help but you had to do something to make yourself feel better about getting flipped onto your ass multiple times everyday.

All the training that you had been doing for the past month or so with the Avengers had really gotten you into shape, you felt the best you ever had. You could see the changes in your appearance too with your muscles growing bigger and bulking out everywhere. Your curves had been even more accentuated, pulling your waist in tight just for it to flow back out again at your hips and thighs, even your ass had grown bigger and your body had become something that you were proud about for once.

In the last few weeks you had managed to get an extreme confidence boost in your appearance, especially with the way you looked in your new Avengers suit. Tony had designed you a flawless skin hugging and breathable suit that was even better than anything you could imagine. It was a deep gray color with red stripes running along each limb and it had sleeves that stopped just before your palms so that you could still use and control your powers while wearing it. You also had black combat boots to wear with it as well as a built in thigh holster for a gun and a few blades, in the off chance that they would ever be needed. The suit was also water and fireproof so that you didn’t have to worry about soaking yourself or singeing the fabric and ruining it.

You were pulled out of the thoughts about your new suit when you heard someone clear their throat behind you.

“You ready to go Hotshot?” Cap shot you a mischievous smile which clued you in to just how much fun training was going to be today.

You stood up and faced the blond super soldier, “Yeah I am, what are we doing first?” 

“Running.”

You let out a pained groan while trailing behind him and he just chuckled at you while leading you out so that he could start running circles around you, literally.

\---------

A couple dozen times after hearing “On your left.” You gave up and left Steve to continue his torturous running speed alone while you made your way to the punching bags to work on your technique and release some pent up frustration that Cap drilled into you while running.

You only managed to get a few punches in before Friday’s voice rang out through the nearly empty training room, alerting you and the Captain that Tony requested everyone’s presence in the common area.

The two of you exchanged puzzled glances before heading into the elevator and letting it take you up to where the rest of the team was waiting, and you both made your way over to sit in front of Tony who looked like he was ready to give a big announcement.

“Perfect Capsicle and the Princess are here now I can get started.” He shot the two of you a playful glare before continuing, “As you all know my birthday is tomorrow,”

“How could we forget Stark, you won’t shut up about it” Natsha poked fun at him.

“Har har Natasha now shut up and don’t interrupt me again.” He side eyed Natasha to make sure she wasn’t going to try anything and then he continued, “So I’m throwing a party. A big one.”

Your jaw almost fell open with excitement, the fun break from your routine that you were praying for has finally arrived in the form of a birthday party, a Stark birthday party. You knew that this was about to be amazing and just the right thing to cure your boredom and you couldn’t wait.

“Is that seriously all you called us in here for Stark?” Steve spoke out at Tony.

“I mean technically yes, I just wanted to inform you all of the part and to dress as nice as possible because it’s my birthday that we’re talking about here.”

A little bit more giddy conversation took place about the party that was going to be held the following day as people started to trickle out of the room to return to whatever they were doing before Tony decided to assemble everyone for his party announcement.

You took the opportunity of your stomach grumbling to excuse yourself and go make some lunch, because it was well past your normal eating time now and you were absolutely starving. You made your way to the fridge to pull out the ingredients and make yourself a sandwich to satiate your growing hunger.

After eating your lunch, the rest of your day was filled with everything that you could do to pass the time until tomorrow. You Watched some TV, took a bath, and did some other of your hobbies to make tomorrow come faster than it already was.

You picked up your favorite book to read while laying in your bed and before you knew it, your eyes were growing heavy and you fell asleep with the light still on and your book resting on your stomach.

\--------------

You abruptly woke to a knock at your door and you sat up, yelling at whoever it was that they could come inside.

“Oh my god did you just wake up?! Do you know what time it is the party starts in a few hours!” Natasha scolded you as she walked in with Wanda, the two women holding their dresses and heels with their makeup and hair already done.

You furrowed your eyebrows and glanced at the clock and your eyes widened with surprise. 3 PM. You managed to sleep until 3. P. M. 

“Oh my God I must have stayed up later than I thought when I was reading holy crap oh God I need to shower. I’m gonna go shower you guys do what you need to do.” You spewed your words while hurriedly making your way to the bathroom.

You took a quick shower, scrubbing your body and washing your hair as quick as possible so that you didn’t waste any of the time that you had to get ready for the party. Once you were done in the shower you dried yourself off and tied the towel around yourself to step out and into your room.

“Good now what dress are you wearing?” Natasha clapped her hands together.

“Oh I uh actually didn’t think to pick one out yet I completely spaced it.”

Natasha’s eyes widened and she quickly pushed you over to your closet to make you go pick one out.

You took forever picking out a dress because nothing seemed like the right thing to wear for the occasion. You finally stumbled upon a dress that was hiding in between other random pieces of clothes and you knew that it was perfect.

You took it out into your bedroom and the second that Natasha and Wanda saw it in your hand they broke out into wide smiles and assured you that it was in fact going to be the perfect look for tonight, before ushering you to sit while they did your hair and makeup.

The three of you chatted and gossiped about nothing in particular while you were getting ready and getting put together by the two girls and before you knew it Friday was alerting you that the guests were starting to arrive and that we should be heading down as well.

You decided to take Friday’s advice and you decided to go grab your dress that you picked out from it’s spot where it was hanging on the wall and go slip it on.

Once you were satisfied you looked in the mirror and you smiled. You were completely satisfied with the way Natasha and Wanda had worked their magic on your cosmetics and both the women were right about the dress, you looked flawless.

The dress was Navy blue and was complemented with the nudes and blacks that your makeup was done with. It’s thin straps melted into triangle shapes that covered your breasts while also maintaining a deep v neckline that showed off a fair amount of cleavage, before cinching at your waist and then flaring out into a loose skirt that stopped just before your knees. The back of the dress was open and showed off most of your backside before stopping right at the small of your back.

You stepped out to where Wanda and Natasha were and they both beamed at you before Wanda spoke out,

“My goodness sestra you look incredible, everyone will be drooling over you I can tell.”

“Holy shit if you don’t get laid by someone tonight I’m taking the opportunity to do it myself.” Natasha gave you a once over and then came over to hug you.

You laughed and then went over to Wanda to give her a hug as well before heading over to your door and glancing back at them.

“Thank you guys, seriously. I don’t know where I’d be if I didn’t have you guys here to help me out.” Your eyes started to well with tears before you continued speaking. “I owe everything to the team, I’d probably be in a Hydra base being made into a killing machine if it wasn’t for everyone here and you two have especially helped me by being my best friends.”

“You’re welcome honey, we’re glad to have you here too you’re an amazing addition to the team and It’s nice to have another woman here amongst all the testosterone in the building.” Natasha smiled at you and placed a hand on your back.

“Okay now enough sentiment, don’t you dare cry and ruin this masterpiece because you look hot and we need to get down there to party the night away.” Wanda said as she took charge and opened the door, leading the three of you down into the party room.

The elevator doors opened and you were immediately greeted with the smell of liquor and the sound of booming music that everyone was dancing to. Nat and Wanda walked out in front of you and you followed closely behind while they led you to the bar where you could all get a drink and start to unwind for the night that was to come.

Once the three of you ordered and received your drinks you all split off to go do whatever activities you pleased and you surveyed the room to try and find someone you knew to go talk to. Once you got three quarters of the way around you spotted a familiar blond haired man with a dorito build and smiled to yourself as you made your way over to him.

“Hey Cap!” You poked at his shoulder and he turned around to greet you back.

“Wow hey Hotshot you look incredible!” He smiled at you and bent down to give you a hug before letting go to allow you to make yourself known to the rest of the group that he was talking to.

You were greeted with the surprised faces of Bucky and Sam who clearly didn’t expect you to be there talking with them. Neither of them said anything for a moment until Sam stopped looking you up and down and decided to talk to you instead.

“Looking beautiful Hotshot, maybe Stark should throw parties and give you excuses to dress up more often.” He chuckled before taking a sip of his drink that he was holding.

You laughed at him before replying, “Thank you Sam, but in your dreams birdman.”

He pretended to look hurt and held a hand to his heart, “Ouch I think you just broke my heart.”

You have him one last chuckle before turning to Bucky and smiling at him, “Hey Bucky.”

“Hey doll, you look great.” He just smiled back at you before giving you another quick onceover.

The four of you fell into conversation, all sipping on your drinks before Thor made his way over to your group.

“Ah my midgardian friends, just who I wanted to see. Come try to lift the hammer!” His voice boomed out at you.

You glanced back at everyone with a questioning look and Cap just answered with, “He does it every party and he won’t stop until you try.” 

You nodded and then the four of you made your way over to the table where he had Mjolnir placed and you saw that the rest of the Avengers were already there. You all sat and talked while taking turns trying to lift the hammer, which no one could do just as you had suspected.

After everyone had attempted to lift his weapon, they all left to go dancing or to make conversation with other people and it was just you, Cap, and Bucky left in the group. You stared up at the two super soldiers before downing the rest of your drink and glancing towards the dance floor.

“Alright which one of you is going to dance with me?” You asked the two.

They both glanced at each other before Steve looked back at you and spoke,

“Buck would love to. Right Buck?”

He looked at Steve as if to say ‘why the fuck would you do that’ and you were about to say that he didn’t have to if he didn’t want to until he looked over at you and spoke,

“Yeah I’ll dance with you.” He softened his gaze and offered you his hand to lead you to the dance floor.

You took it and allowed yourself to be led while you glanced back at Steve who was smiling at you and giving you a thumbs up. You rolled your eyes at him and turned back to Bucky to find him staring at you.

You swallowed nervously as he rested his metal hand along your back and taking your left hand with his right, to guide you into a slow rhythm of swaying back and forth together. You found yourself breathing in his scent because of how good he smelled tonight.

After a little while, you rested your head on his chest as you tried to calm your whirring thoughts about how nice he was being, how good he looked and smelled, and how much you liked him.

Wait no. You can’t like him, that's wrong. He’s a teammate and he doesn’t like you that way anyways so there’s definitely no way you could like him. Your heart started to race and you barely noticed when the song slowed to a stop and Bucky stopped swaying with you as well.

You pulled away and stared into his eyes while smiling at him. “Thank you for the dance Bucky.”

“You’re welcome doll.” He whispered back to you.

You pulled completely away and patted his shoulder before you spun around in the direction of the bar because you were in desperate need to get way more drunk than you already were. As if your prayers were being answered, you found a seat right next to Thor on a barstool before ordering “Whatever is going to get me drunk the fastest” was your exact order.

After you were two drinks in, Thor glanced at you before striking up a conversation.

“Troubles my tiny friend?” He asked you.

You were already starting to feel the warming and looseness from your drinks which meant that your verbal filter was out the window for this conversation, poor Thor.

“Oh you know just a big fat crush that I finally admitted to myself and that I’m now terrified of.”

Thor’s laughter boomed in your ears, “Why would you be terrified little one?”

You polished off your third drink and ordered a fourth before answering Thor’s question, “Because they’re on the team and I practically live with them so I can’t hide from it and I’m pretty sure they hate me.”

“I highly doubt that my friend, you are a hard one to hate.”

“Yeah if you say so, they make me feel like I’m hated anyways.”

“If you would not mind telling me who you are ‘crushing’ on as you midgardians say, I might be able to help you.”

You contemplated for a moment before just telling him. “Bucky.”

Thor just smiled at you and nodded his head, “That is what I thought.”

“Wait what! What do you mean that’s what you thought? How did you know I didn’t tell anyone.”

“It is simple, I saw you two dancing. And I also see the way you look at him when you think that no one is paying attention.”

You stayed silent while sipping on your latest drink, you have no idea what number is and you stopped counting after 6 but it must be a lot because you’re really starting to feel it. You took one quick glance at Thor before standing up.

“You know what, I'm gonna go talk to him.” You stated, your actions clearly fogged by the plethora of alcohol buzzing it’s way through your veins.

“Friend I don’t think that’s a good ide-” He tried to stop you but it was too late, you already found Bucky and started to make your way over to where he was standing.

You stumbled slightly as you approached him which caused him to furrow his brow and reach a hand out to help stabilize you, breaking the conversation he was having with Steve.

“Captain.” You gave him a solute before giggling and he shot you a worried look.

“Hotshot? Are you alright?”

“Doin jus fine Cap I came to talk to Buck here.” You pointed your finger in Bucky’s direction and you went to turn towards him but Cap caught you slurring your words and stopped you by placing a hand on your shoulder.

“How much have you had to drink tonight?”

“Uh oh someone is in dad mode, I’m fine I’ve only had like… I don’t remember. But I’m fine.” You hiccuped before trying to turn back to Bucky again but Steve’s hand still remained firm and his face got even more worried.

“No you’re not. You’re extremely drunk, you need to go to bed.” He scolded you while trying to lead you towards the exit.

“Stop it I came to talk to Bucky. I wanna talk to him!” You started to raise your voice and it was drawing the attention of some nearby people.

“Steve it’s fine I’ll take her to her room since she clearly isn’t giving up.” Bucky cut in after a few too many worried glances from random guests.

Steve shot a look at Bucky before nodding his head and dropping his hand from your shoulder so that he could get you out of the room full of people.

You glanced at Bucky and he held out his arm for you to take so you grabbed onto it and smiled at him. You both made your way to the elevator together in silence and slipped inside. While you were waiting for the doors to close you stared up and started to look at Bucky’s face. Once the doors closed and the elevator started to make its way up to your floor Bucky turned to look at you, and he was a little startled to find you already staring at him.

“What’s wrong?” He asked you in a soft voice while switching his gaze back and forth from each of your eyes.

“You’re pretty.” You whispered up at him.

He looked genuinely surprised at your revelation and he took a minute to respond, “And you’re drunk.”

“Well yeah but that doesn’t change the fact that you’re pretty’”

“You can’t think I’m pretty.” He stated firmly, but because of how drunk you were you clearly didn’t pick up that he wanted the conversation to be over.

“But why not? Because I do.” You kept persisting.

The elevator doors slipped open and he started to guide you out before he spoke, “Because you’re too good of a person to think that I’m pretty.”

You hiccuped before answering him, “Is that why you hate me? Because I’m too good?”

The two of you stopped at your door and he stared down at you with a look of concern in his eye, “Doll I could never hate you, I just don’t want to hurt you.”

“Well that’s bullshit you could never hurt me.”

He just chuckled at you before opening the door and guiding you inside to sit on your bed. He raised his right hand to cup your cheek while he stared into your eyes.

“I wish that were true but I’m not risking it by letting you in.”

You scoffed at him and started to raise your voice, “No you’re not risking anything, you’re just being too much of a coward to acknowledge the fact that you think I’m pretty too.”

Bucky just sighed at you with sorrow in his eyes and gave you a barely audible reply, “I know. I’m sorry I just-” he shook his head and looked away for a minute to regain his composure before continuing, “Look we’ll talk about this when you’re not drunk okay? Try to get some sleep. Goodnight.”

You started to protest but he just ignored you and walked out of the room, leaving you alone in silence. You didn’t have the energy to get up or move so you just crawled your way up to your pillow and layed down, still in your dress and makeup from the night, reeking of alcohol.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is way longer than I was planning but I'm still pretty happy with how it turned out. I hope you enjoyed it!


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